I imagine Jesus standing there, face to face with those Pharisees and Herodians, turning that coin over in his hand . . . the cool metal warming as he rubs the raised image of Caesar with his thumb.

     Despite the anger in his voices as he calls the Pharisees hypocrites; I imagine pain in his eyes. The anger is there, too, of course. But it’s mixed in with sorrow like cream in coffee.

     Pain and anger are simply different facets of the same thing. They are branches of that deep-rooted tree of grief. They are different ways of feeling and expressing loss.

     We get angry and we feel pain when we have lost something. 

     So the questions beg to be answered: What has Jesus lost? What was Jesus grieving?

     To understand why Jesus was moved to name calling, especially the name ‘hypocrite,’ let’s look at our Hebrew text, and the texts that preceded it: the story of the Exodus. I am not going to spend a whole lot of time on stories you are all very familiar with. Just in a broad-brush stroke, remember that the social, religious, and economic systems of Egypt valued a wealthy few and oppressed many more. The religious focus of the Egyptians was on the afterlife, and they spent their fortunes and sacrificed the lives of many in order that the upper crust could secure for themselves the very best in the next world.

     You know the story of the Exodus, Moses, and all that happened in the wilderness. We’ve all seen Charlton Heston as Moses. We KNOW this story.

     But today, I want us to focus on what God was doing with this new people. God was revealing the alternative to what Walter Wink calls the domination system. God was creating a new people by creating a religious system, an economic system, a legal system, and family system that were all more just, more compassionate.  God revealed to Moses what God intended for humanity. A system in which everything was meant to be for the common good, especially those we have come to know as the ‘least of these’ -- meaning those who were least able to care for themselves, or didn’t have power, privilege, or voice.

     This was what God had in mind when God created humanity. That we would, each of us, serve the common good, especially the least.  That all our systems would serve the common good.

     Everything is connected. Therefore everything is meant to serve the common good, especially the interests of the least of these. If it isn’t good for everyone, it isn’t good. If it serves some while others suffer, it isn’t good.

     The legal system is to serve the common good, especially the least.

     The religious system is to serve the common good, especially the least.

     The educational system is to serve the common good, especially the least.

     The medical system is to serve the common good, especially the least.

     The economic system is to serve the common good, especially the least.

     The political system is to serve the common good, especially the least.

     That was why Moses was called, and why the Israelites were called out.

     God was not simply offering a choice between two or more ways of organizing life, of living our lives. This was not simply an interesting idea that God had.

     What God revealed to Moses was truth. Reality. This is the way the world was created to be. This is what human beings were created to be like. And, if we are to believe the promises of God in scripture—this is the way it will one day be fully.

     The domination system, in other words, is illusion. It was an invention. A perversion. It is a lie based on lies.

     Because it is not the way God intended the world to be, it cannot stand. It cannot last.

     Our text today follows that Golden Calf story. You remember that story:  while Moses was away from the people, the people got anxious. Like children in a darkened bedroom where chairs become monsters and a robe on a hook becomes a floating ghost, their imaginations were wasted in worry.

They forgot how to trust God. The veil of illusion began to fall over them. It begins to fall when we forget to trust God for everything we need. It begins to fall when we get anxious, when we get fearful, when we forget. It begins to fall when we forget that God is caring for us and we think we have to take care of ourselves, alone. It begins to fall when we think we are separate from others, when we forget we are all connected.

 The people became anxious, and in the darkness their fears took flight. Who would feed them? Who would lead them? What was to become of them?

 Anxiety is just a fancy word for fear. And  you know that fear blocks brain function?

It is true. Fear blocks brain function.

You see, human beings actually have three brains. We have a brainstem called the reptilian brain. If controls our breathing, and other basic instincts. Fear, you see, is a basic instinct. It exists for our survival. Let’s say you were standing in the middle of a road and a Mac truck was coming toward you, it would be the reptilian brain that would make you jump out of the way. A good thing to possess.

Our second brain is the mammalian brain. It is the home of nurture and playfulness. That’s why we enjoy playing with cats and dogs and don’t have as much fun playing with snacks and lizards.

Above that is the third brain that separates us from other creatures. The cortex: the thinking cap. The home of creativity, abstract thinking, and problem solving.

The cortex cannot be accessed from the reptilian brain, however. Which is how fear blocks brain function. And the reptilian brain also perceives ANY danger, any change, and any anxiety, as life threatening. (Our reptilian brain is our resident Chicken Little.) Every change – large or small-- becomes a threat. Everything is LIFE OR DEATH!

That information helps us to understand what happened while Moses was up on the mountain. He had been delayed. The people were anxious. They were in reptilian regression. They just knew they were going to die in the wilderness. They could no longer trust in God. So they turned to Aaron.  Aaron, the second in command, didn’t handle anxiety well. Aaron, unlike Moses, failed to remind them of the God who had been there for them, who had freed them, who could be trusted.  We lose the ability to look back, to U when we are in the reptilian mode.

So, Aaron was anxious, too. Aaron was more impressed by the polls than by what was truth. Aaron was taking care of himself.

So Aaron provided the first quick fix: “Let’s build a golden calf!”

 The first tranquilizer. This could be one of the mythical beginnings of all addictive behavior. Uncomfortable? Anxious?  Afraid? Unsure? Every addiction is based on a substance; activity or process that we think will help us alleviate discomfort. Every addiction is meant to keep us from feeling uncomfortable feelings. Every addiction is a quick fix.  Every addiction is a little golden calf. The divisions seem to multiply rapidly. First from trust in God, then rationality and reason are lost, and then behaviors that separate us from our own feelings, and from one another. Reptiles are not communal either,  remember? In most cases, they don’t even nurture their own young. They are interested only in individual survival. There is no such thing as “the common good” for reptiles. The ability to conceive such things rests in the higher brains.

This is the way the darkness works: We can’t trust God.  Let’s take care of ourselves by creating an illusory ‘god’, something that will ‘save’ us from feeling what we are feeling. It doesn’t really change anything-- doesn’t really change the situation-- but we can pretend that it might. We become addicted to the illusion. Our culture is based on those illusions.

Let’s pretend. Let’s live in illusion rejecting the truth. For, soon, we can’t even see the truth.  

The story goes on, of course, to our text for today. God was ready to give up on the people. They were stiff-necked and impossible.  But Moses argued that without God’s guidance, they could never be the people God had in mind. In today’s text, we discover that instead of quitting, God renewed the commitment to these stubborn, slow people. Once again, when justice and compassion clash within the heart of God, compassion prevails.

Then God allowed Moses to see, of all things, the divine hind side. While Moses was between a rock and a hard place (because to see God’s face would be too much) God passes by and allows Moses a glimpse of God’s back. It is difficult for us to understand some of these ancient concepts.  . . But it has been my experience that if everything were revealed to us ahead, if we had to ‘face’ fully our futures, we might not be able to bear what lies ahead. But we can see how God has moved in our lives in hindsight, can’t we? We can look back and remember God has always been there, guiding, providing. “God’s love has never failed me yet” according to the old song.

With that background, we can now turn back to Jesus.

     Have you ever felt the powerlessness of knowing the truth and not being believed?

     It is almost as if no one understands the language in which you may be speaking? Or there is some kind of disconnect that makes understanding impossible?  I had an experience like that once on one of Southwest Airlines puddle jumpers from Amarillo to Austin. There was one stop: Lubbock. For those of you who have never done time in the Panhandle of Texas, Lubbock is not far from Amarillo. The plane goes up, and then just as quickly, starts going down. I was sitting next to two Japanese businessmen, and it seemed clear to me from their panic and grabbing the emergency information that they thought we were crashing. There was nothing I could do to assure them. We didn’t speak the same language.   I felt sad at the unnecessary panic going on, but I really couldn’t do anything about it. Just watch their relief when the plane landed safely.

     I often wonder if Jesus felt that way. I wonder at those occasions, like this one, when Jesus was face to face with the Pharisees, who could have, who should have understood the same truth he knew, who should have spoken his language, who had been formed by the same stories that formed him . . . and I think how very painful it must have been for him to see them standing there so close . . . his own people . . . those who knew and worshipped the same God he knew and worshipped those who knew the gift of Torah . . . if any one could/would understand his ministry, surely it would be them. But they didn’t.  So close, and yet so far away.

As he rolled the round coin between his fingers, and met their eyes with his, I imagine him pondering the unnecessary pain of his people. 

     That, I think, is what Jesus might have been grieving all along. For Jesus, the light had been switched on and the illusion had been revealed for what it was. Jesus saw what was real and grieved that his people were still living as frightened children in the dark.

     He grieved at how much injustice was practiced as a result of the domination system. He grieved at how little peace and love and compassion his people had as a result of living unconsciously. 

     I like to imagine him with that coin in his hand, the sharp ridges pressed against his palm, as he looks at those he hoped would help him wake up the people, calling them back to faithfulness, and yet finding instead that they were the most afraid, the most resistant, the least faithful. It’s easy to understand his anger here, easy to understand him calling them hypocrites. Not just for their words of empty praise, which did not fit with their intent of ill will.  It would be easy to understand him not caring about them, or seeing them as enemies, seeing them as out to get him, which they were, and write them off as lost causes.     

 However, that would be illusion, wouldn’t it? The very idea that we can separate from people is not reality. WE ARE ALL CONNECTED. Jesus taught us to love our enemies, and Jesus modeled that for us.  We are created in the image of a God in whose heart compassion rules. A God of wholeness. Shalom.

     Jesus may have looked at that image of the Emperor, symbol of the domination system, and thought of the power of illusion. And then Jesus may have looked at the Pharisees, created in the image of God and saw them as they really were, even if they had forgotten.  Saw them as God created them to be. Valuable, loveable, precious children of God. Part of him.  I like to think Jesus saw everyone that way. I like to think we could.

I imagine Jesus with that coin in his hand, and those Pharisees in front of him, his own people, the religious leaders of his day, who knew that things were not as they should have been. Who knew that the economic system of that day was not as God intended. Who knew the religious system of that day was not serving the common good, especially the least of those. Who knew that the justice system was using the death penalty to keep the illusion of peace, which was not what God had in mind.  And they were asking him to whom should one pay taxes? They were trying to trap him – they were pawns of the domination system, trapped by illusion. They had lost touch with reality, with God and with themselves.

“Don’t they get it?”  He must have thought.” Don’t they understand yet?”

So he asked them a question. He asked them – God’s people, created in the image of God, “Whose image is on this coin?” And they answered “Caesar.”(For the coin they gave him was the coin of the oppressor) “Then pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”

Give the Golden Calf what the Golden Calf is due.

Give to God what God is due.

They are not equal, competing powers. One is real the other is illusory “The earth is the Holy One’s and the fullness thereof.”

I don’t think they got it back then. I don’t think we get it today, not fully.

I know how I feel when I can’t seem to get through to others, when they just don’t seem to get it, when they just don’t seem to understand. Sometimes I want to quit, walk away, forget trying to relate. Wash my hands and shake the dust from my feet.

Perhaps Jesus felt that way. I can’t help but wonder if he thought they just might be beyond hope.

Or if he remembered that time when God wanted to quit, too. If he remembered we are created in the image of that God. A forgiving, eternally patient, compassionate God. The very God in whose heart when law and compassion are at odds—compassion wins out.  It is to that God that we owe allegiance and gratitude and all we have and are. Because we are created in God’s image – that is who WE are as well. That is reality.

It’s a coin toss, friends:

Heads: the Emperor, addiction to the culture, division, separation, isolation, the domination system, illusion, and night terrors.

Tails: seeing God in retrospect, and knowing based on God being with us in the past, that God is with us today. Will be with us tomorrow. Remembering:  consciousness, connection, community, seeking the common good, compassion, and living in the light.

Heads or tails? 

Your call.